


when you find you (come back to me)

by commonemergency



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-08-14 07:48:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20188792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commonemergency/pseuds/commonemergency
Summary: Dan didn’t know if there was a reason why some people jumped and others didn’t. He didn’t know if it was a generational thing and Dan was just the lucky or unlucky one that got this gift (if you can call it that). Maybe there was a reason behind it—Dan had always been content with the fact that there were just some things he would never know, but this was something that he wanted to understand because he couldn’t control it.Or, Dan is a time traveler and Phil waits for him. Or, Dan needs a friend and finds himself.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> welcome to _"i've had writers block for so long and this is the only story i could work on’_ fic
> 
> or
> 
> my first chaptered fic that i am very _nervous_ but excited about. i've always wanted to write a time travel fic but just was too scared to do it until now. i have everything pretty much outlined but as far as posting goes i'm kind of just wingin' it. i hope that this is enjoyable and that you'll like it!

**AGE FIVE.**

The first time Dan jumped, he was twenty-one. The details are foggy on how he jumped, they always have been, but he remembers being outside his school and watching his younger self talk with his peers while he waited for his nana to pick him up. He had always heard about jumpers, it’s not that they were uncommon. In his family his uncle had been the “chosen one.” 

When he died, he left those secrets with him. 

Dan was lost, looking at five year old Dan, he’s got a big smile on his face, his hair curly and blonde, he doesn’t remember it being blonde but he supposed that made sense. 

If there were rules, Dan had broken many of them his first jump. 

He watches as a kid pushes Dan down into the pavement and then laughs at him before running off with his friend. Dan remembers huffing, walking over to baby him and picking him up off of the ground and giving the finger to the kids that had pushed him down while getting angry stares from parents. 

Five year old Dan’s face was so kind, and he was so small. 

(It was like five year old Dan knew that it was _him_.)

(The reality was, Dan would take kindness from anyone that would give it to him. It breaks Dan’s heart in many ways knowing that he wasn’t the recipient of it in most occasions.)

“You okay?” Dan asks, he’s rocking on his heels, rubbing the dirt off with his thumb like his mother does. Did. He jumped to the past. 

“Who are you?” Baby Dan asks, rubbing his eyeball with the palm of his hand. 

_I’m you_, Dan wants to say. 

“I’m a friend.” Dan smiles, “I know your mum.” 

Baby Dan thinks about it for a moment before looking at him again. 

“What’s your name?” Dan forgot how many questions he used to ask, because he knows that his next one would probably be about either games or food. 

Dan bites the inside of his cheek. Baby Dan was told a lot of lies as a kid, but he doesn’t know _what_ he’s doing or _why_ he’s here. 

“James.”

The answer seems to satisfy Baby Dan. “Okay.” 

Dan can still hear the kids laughing in the distance. 

“I’m sorry they pushed you. It’s okay if you fight back.” Dan fixes his jumper, knowing how much his mum used to get on him for not wearing it properly or it getting dirty. 

_He was five_, but they couldn’t really afford to get it cleaned. 

“Oh, I am not the fighting sort.” 

Dan wishes he could roll his eyes at himself, but truthfully, he was endeared. 

“I know.” 

Dan knows that nana is going to be here soon, she wasn’t late often. 

“I have to go now.” Dan says to himself, he runs a hand through his unruly curly hair. 

“Okay,” Baby Dan looks confused but he doesn’t question it too much. “Bye.” He waves at Dan with his small hands. 

He knows that it’s _him_, but he feels a paternal instinct that hadn’t been there before when he thought about his younger self. 

He wants to tell him more, but he’s not ready for all of that yet. 

*

When Dan jumped back, he was in his living room and Phil is sitting at the table with a book and a mug of tea and a blanket, like he’s waiting for him. Dan’s heart was beating fast and he was sweating. He looked around, before examining himself over and over again, just to check if anything was missing. 

Phil smiled slightly, getting up, closing his book and he walked over to him with the mug and the blanket. Dan was now shaking. 

“The first time my brother jumped he said he was cold.” 

Dan looks up at him with surprise and warmth. His shaking hands reached out for the mug of tea while Phil wrapped the blanket around Dan. 

“Your brother….?” Dan’s voice is low. 

Phil nodded his head. 

“Yeah, my brother’s a jumper. My father too.” 

_But not Phil._

They never talked about it. It just wasn’t the kind of conversation that you have. The first time his uncle had jumped Dan had been there to witness him coming back. He was young then, not really realising it until it was over. 

Phil sat down next to Dan, intertwining their fingers together. 

“My mum said that if I didn’t start to jump when I was a kid it would probably never happen.” 

Phil thought about it for a moment, his thumb brushing against his skin in a soothing way that makes Dan kind of want to cry. 

“I think it’s different for everyone. I don’t know. Martyn had been jumping since he was twelve. My dad when he was ten.”

Dan took small sips of the hot drink, and his heart rate was going down considerably. 

“What does this mean?” Dan whispered. 

“I don’t know. Martyn or my dad never liked to talk about it.” 

_I’m so tired,_ Dan thought. 

“Let’s get you into bed.” Phil helps Dan get up, grabbing the mug from him and placing it on the table. 

Phil goes as far as tucking him in while he turned off all the lights. 

Dan just stared up at the ceiling thinking about five year old him, it wasn’t like anything really happened. He just talked to himself, which was _weird_, but he wanted to protect himself. 

Phil joins him in bed not too long after and it’s quiet. 

“I saw myself get pushed by bullies.”

Dan feels Phil move to wrap his arms around him, making him the little straw. He takes a big breath, shaking his head. 

“I don’t know. I don’t get it.” 

Phil presses his lips against the back of his neck. 

“As long as you come back.” 

**AGE SIX.**

He’s twenty-two, the leaves are changing, it’s October, and it’s just started to get colder. He jumps and sees that not much has changed from the last time that he saw himself, just a year older. He’s at the park near his house, Dan wonders where his mum or nana are or if Dan had done that thing he used to do: he’d run away—for a couple of hours. He’d always come back, no one really worried _that_ much because he always went to the same place. 

He’s on the swings, and Dan notices the mud on his cheeks. 

“Hi,” Dan says to baby Dan. 

“James?” Baby Dan says with a small smile. 

Dan closes his eyes for a second. Right. 

“Yeah,” Dan sits himself down on the swing. 

“Where did you go?” Baby Dan tilts his head to look at Dan, maybe trying to figure out who the hell he is. 

“I went home.” 

Baby Dan kicks with all his might. Dan smiles, getting up from the swing to get behind him to help him push. 

“Isn’t this home?” 

Dan feels a lump in his throat. 

“It used to be.” 

Baby Dan is content in the silence, he’s being pushed on the swing, and Dan enjoys it. He had so many questions, but sometimes the best thing to do was just be quiet and enjoy the silence. Baby Dan was perfect for that.

“Do you have a best friend?” baby Dan asks to slow down and Dan stops pushing him to sit back on his swing. 

“I do.” 

Baby Dan gears to jump off the swing, and when he does he lands on his face and Dan gets up immediately to grab him, his heart is racing and baby Dan is laughing. Dan flicks his nose gently and it makes baby Dan laugh even more. 

Dan rolls his eyes, getting the wood chips out of his hair and fixing his coat. 

“What’s your best friend’s name?” Baby Dan asks, he gets back on the swing wanting to go high again. 

“His name is Phil. You’ll meet him someday.” 

Baby Dan’s eyes widen, “I will? Where is he now?” He looks left and right like he’ll show up and _God,_ he wishes he would. 

“Yeah. I think you’ll really like him,” Dan’s lump in his throat is getting harder and harder to swallow. “He’s at home too.” 

Baby Dan doesn’t ask about Phil, but he does ask a bunch of questions about where he lives now. 

“You’ve been to London.” Dan says with a small laugh.

“Not-uh.” Baby Dan shakes his head. 

“Uh-huh.” 

“Not-uh.”

_I can’t believe I’m arguing with my younger self._

“You’re a brat Dan.” Dan says with another laugh. 

“My mum says that too.” Baby Dan looks proud of it, the cheeky little grin so evident on his face. _How could anyone want to harm it?,_ Dan thinks.

“Your mum is right.” Dan reaches out to poke baby Dan. 

Baby Dan blushes and jumps off the swing again. 

“Dan, where is your mum?” 

Baby Dan huffs, he sits on the grass and Dan follows him, sitting down next to him. They both look up. It looks like rain clouds. 

“I have a baby brother.” Baby Dan grabs a handful of grass, he examines it in his hands before dropping it. “He’s not old enough to play yet.” 

Dan of course knows this, but he remembers the many times that Dan could disappear and no one would notice. 

Baby Dan brushes it off before grabbing something out of his pocket. 

“Want to play with my Tamagotchi?” 

*

Dan finds Phil on the couch, he’s wrapped up in a blanket. Dan is sweating and cold at the same time sitting on the couch next to him. Phil gives him some of his blanket and they watch television together, while Phil loves on Dan. 

Phil says things like, “Sometimes when Martyn came back he couldn’t be around people. It was hard for him to function sometimes.” 

Their life doesn’t stop because he jumps, but it sometimes happened in the most inconvenient times. 

“Sorry.” Dan says, like he can help it. 

“It’s okay, Dan.” 

They had gone out to dinner, and Phil had gone to the bathroom, and when he came back Dan was gone. 

Dan sprawls out and rests his head in Phil’s lap. 

“We were in Florida and mini golfing and then Martyn just disappeared. We thought something bad had happened but he just ... jumped.” Phil combs his hands through Dan’s hair. 

“It must have gotten exhausting.” Dan sighs. 

“My dad still jumps, it’s more recent years now, but he’s getting older, and he says that he actually doesn’t mind it. They’re _happy memories_ he likes to relive again.”

Dan tries to swallow his anxiety. 

“But, you know, Cornelia still loves Martyn. My mum still loves my dad, and you’re still stuck with me.”

Dan looks up at Phil who’s smiling down at him. 

“What adventures did you and baby Dan get up to? I want to know all about it.” 

Phil mutes the telly. 

Dan sighs, closing his eyes and for a moment he’s back there, on the grass playing games with his younger self.

“Baby Dan feels left out, I used to run away a lot as a kid to the park by our house. Adrian is a baby and I can’t play with him yet. We swung on the swings, I pushed him… _me_ and played with the Tamagotchi.” 

Dan bites his bottom lip. 

“And I talked about you.” 

Phil’s smile is warm.

*

When they go to bed that night Phil asks him how he feels about the whole thing. 

“I don’t know. I feel like I would have reacted differently if I had done this when I was younger. It just… It feels like it’s happening at the worst time in my life.”

Phil is silent for a while. 

“I read an article about this guy who started jumping when he was fifty.” 

Dan turns in the bed, “Holy fuck. That’s horrible.” 

“Why?” Phil asks. 

“That’s…. It’s just _so_ much time.”

Phil drums his fingers against Dan’s skin. Fingers tracing every curve. 

“Does it feel like a curse, Dan?”

_Sometimes,_ but he doesn’t want to tell him that.

“I don’t know. I haven’t even been doing it that long.” 

“I think the reason it may feel like it is because you’re watching these messy, vulnerable parts of yourself during some of the worst times and having to relive them must be… hard.” 

Dan gulps. 

“It’s like. He’s _me._ But I want to protect him…. Because I know what happens.” 

Phil takes a deep breath.

“Martyn tried to fix things but… it never worked. It always happened in some way. You can’t change the past. You can only learn from it.” 

_Learn from it._ Dan didn’t know if there was a reason why some people jumped and others didn’t. He didn’t know if it was a generational thing and Dan was just the lucky or unlucky one that got this gift (if you can call it that). Maybe there was a reason behind it—Dan had always been content with the fact that there were just some things he would never know, but this was something that he wanted to understand because he couldn’t control it. He couldn’t control a lot of things as of late and being able to jump back in time—well, he didn’t know. He didn’t know and it bothered him. 

“Do you think it’s random?” Dan whispers.

“Maybe. That seems to be the consensus but… who knows.” 

_Yeah_, Dan thinks, _who knows._

Phil is the little spoon tonight. 

“I’m sorry for leaving you alone at dinner tonight. I know I can’t help it but I feel bad anyway.” 

Phil rests his hands on top of Dan’s, he gives them a gentle squeeze. 

“It’s okay, Dan. You always come back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you liked this, please let me know.
> 
> comments/kudos appreciated!
> 
> find me on tumblr/twitter: **@nihilismdan.**


	2. Chapter 2

**AGE SEVEN.**

“What does gay mean?” Baby Dan is drinking a hot chocolate, it’s dripping down his shirt, it’s all over his face, and he doesn’t even care. 

Dan reaches over with a napkin to wipe it off. Baby Dan squirms, getting the hot chocolate everywhere and he’s giggling. 

This wasn’t the conversation that he thought he would be having. He had called the school using his best father-like voice and said that _Dan had an appointment that my wife forgot to inform me about, but he’ll be back sometime after lunch_ He didn’t know if it was believable, he definitely looked twenty-three and not the age his father currently was, but it worked. (It made something ache knowing that even then his father had always been too busy to show up to anything for anyone to even remember what he looked like.) Dan was having a panic attack the entire time having to sneak into his own house from the past to wear clothes that his father wore and tried to do his hair in the way that his father styled it. 

(He absolutely fucking hated it.) 

When baby Dan saw him he ran to him with open arms, almost giving it away Dan had to cover his mouth and rush him out the door. 

Baby Dan was _“very good at keeping secrets”_ and wouldn’t tell his mum a word. It really should concern Dan considering that this tiny child across from him was _him_ and he just complied with a lie with a sort of almost stranger.

He wasn’t ready for this conversation, but by the looks of it everything had already started. There was a shallow bruise on baby Dan’s arm. When Dan had asked him about it, he lied, saying that it was nothing. 

He knew that eventually he’d have to tell him that he was _him_, but he liked living in this bubble of where it was just them, where Dan was just this older brother figure. 

“Gay means…. well. “ Dan bit down on his bottom lip, reaching out to move the hair out of baby Dan’s eyes. “It means you fancy boys.”

Baby Dan had stopped drinking and looked down at his cup. 

“Is that a bad thing?” 

“No.” Dan shakes his head, he smiles a little at himself. “It’s not a bad thing.” 

There’s a confused facial expression on baby Dan’s face. 

“Oh.” Baby Dan’s voice drops before he blows out a big gust of air. “I’m hungry.” 

Dan smiles at him sadly for a moment. 

“Okay, let’s find some food.” Dan gets up from their little sofa at Starbucks and he puts his coat back on. 

Baby Dan grabs his backpack and Dan has already started walking and he feels baby Dan slip his fingers through his own.

Dan had been holding back a lot of emotions, but this tipped him over the edge a little bit. He takes a small deep breath, smiling down at baby Dan. 

“Can we have ice cream?” 

Dan rolls his eyes. “No. We need to get actual food first.” 

“Then can we have ice cream?” Baby Dan’s smile is big.

“Damn, who raised you?” Dan jokes, squeezing baby Dan’s hand. 

Dan asks him about school and his friends, baby Dan has an opinion and something to say about _everything_. He’s loud, and obnoxious and likes to hop _a lot_ and it makes everything inside of Dan go a little gooey. 

It’s easy to forget what he was like. There are many stories that baby Dan is telling him that he had forgotten about because at the time it didn’t seem very important, or maybe because it hurt a lot more than he thought and just repressed it. Hearing baby Dan talk about these things and knowing who he is now, it hurts. 

Dan thinks back to that conversation with Phil about Martyn. He couldn’t fix his past, it had already happened, so what was he supposed to do with all of this? Remembering, it was both a curse and a blessing.

“I like you.” Baby Dan says out of nowhere. They’re eating pizza in the park, Dan ordering close to what he and Phil usually get, omitting the jalapenos via baby Dan’s request (_You’ll change your mind someday._). 

Dan is staring down at his pizza, and when he looks up at him, baby Dan is back to scarfing down his food, pizza sauce on his face and all. 

Dan quietly sighs. 

“I like you too, Dan.”

_I like you even if I don’t like me._

“Where’s Phil?” Baby Dan is chewing with his mouth full, Dan shakes his head. 

“Chew with your mouth closed.” 

“Where’s Phiiiiil?” 

Dan shakes his head again.

“Phil is off doing Phil things… he’s probably sleeping at home.”

Baby Dan drops the subject and eats more and Dan just watches him. It was an odd feeling to love this little human so much while fully knowing that it was just… it was just him. Dan reaches out to touch his curls, combing through his hair like his nana used to do when he felt stressed out, like Phil still does just because he loves him. 

“I’m gonna have to take you back to school soon.” Dan says quietly. 

Baby Dan looks up sad. 

“Can’t I just stay here with you?” Baby Dan looks down at his pizza. 

“I wish,” 

Dan lets him finish his pizza, and on the way back to school he buys him his ice cream. It’s hard to say no to him. They’re getting close to the school when Dan stops them and hugs him. Baby Dan’s arms are not quick to hesitate hugging him back. 

“If anyone is mean to you, you can tell someone.” Dan says with a small sigh, moving his curls out of his eyes again. 

He knows that saying it won’t do much, but it was something he wished he was told. 

“Okay…” Baby Dan looks down at the pavement. 

Dan walks him to his class and the teacher stops him and smiles. 

“You do look _so_ much alike.” 

Baby Dan hangs his backup up and he waves to Dan and Dan waves back. 

*

Phil isn’t home, but he’s left Dan a note. 

_I wanted to be here for when you got back but remember the meetings we had? I told them you were feeling sick. I’ll try and bring you back some food though. <3_

Dan goes to his room to layer up and then walks out to their living room with a blanket. He wraps it around him, getting in a laying position and turns the telly on. He flips through channels before settling on one. He lays there for a while before he gets up and grabs his phone and sends a quick message. 

He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but when he opens his eyes it’s dark. He hears the door open and Phil is all bundled up with a heavy coat and scarf. 

“When did you get back?” Phil has a takeout box that he brings to the kitchen to heat up. 

Dan walks with his blanket still wrapped around him and follows him to the kitchen too.

He looks at the clock realising that he’s been asleep for almost two hours. 

“I don’t know, it was light when I napped.” 

Phil reaches out to cup his cheek. 

“You look…. Sad?” Phil says quietly. 

Dan wants to say something but the words get jumbled up. He just appreciates Phil’s warmth of his hand. 

“I don’t know what I’m feeling.” 

The microwave beeps and Phil grabs it and hands it to Dan while reaching to get a fork out of the drawer. 

“Well, you eat and I’ll put a movie or something on.” 

Dan takes his blanket pile and his food and sets up camp on their couch while Phil finds something for them to watch. 

“It’s weird because….” Dan moves the food around, “I was just eating pizza… but it was literally a lifetime ago when I was eating it even though it was just a few hours ago… And now I’m thinking, _‘What is baby Dan doing right now?’”_

Phil stops what he’s doing for a second to look back at Dan who’s slowly eating his food. 

“He’s probably getting a bath right now,” Dan looks at the time on his phone. 

He notices that he got a reply back. 

_Hey Dan, I’d love to chat. Cornelia is gone to see her family so I’m available whenever you are Martyn xx_

Phil sits down next to Dan now, and reaches out to run his hands though Dan’s hair. 

“I don’t know how to really help you,” Phil says, thinking for a moment, “My brother and my dad didn’t really talk about it… For whatever reason. I don’t think it’s crazy to miss yourself—the way that you miss baby Dan.”

Dan bites down on his lip.

“I guess it’s just weird missing someone who’s… you.”

Dan finishes his food and lays his head down in Phil’s lap.

“How was the meeting?” 

Phil makes a face. “Boring. I mean the food was good. Saw a dog on my way home.” Phil is carding his hands through Dan’s hair, and he closes his eyes while Phil talks about his day. 

“Sorry.” Dan says, pressing his lips against Phil’s free hand. 

Phil bends down and their noses brush each other, and he kisses him, the kiss slow and long and warm. It’s grounding, and it still feels like the first time. 

“Love you.” Dan whispers in between the small kisses that Phil leaves all over his face. 

“Love you.” Phil says against Dan’s cheek. 

*

Dan is nervous. He’s knocked three times on the door and walked back to give space. He’s got his hands shoved in his pockets, gripping his phone. He takes a deep breath and waits. 

It doesn’t take long for Martyn to open the door and he greets him with a small smile. Dan enters their apartment and smells the strong scent of a candle burning. 

“Hello,” Dan says looking around the flat that he’s come to know so well. 

“Hi there. Cup of tea?” Martyn walks to the kitchen and Dan nods.

“Yeah that would be nice.” He says as he makes it to the table and sits down.

Last night before bed he started writing in a journal of things he didn’t want to miss with his adventures with baby Dan. He tried to get as detailed as he could about their conversations, but the first time he jumped was starting to become a foggy memory. 

Martyn places the mug on the table and then sits across from Dan with his own notebook. 

“So,” Martyn says, “You’re a jumper?” 

Dan looks down at his mug, watching the black tea steep. 

“Yeah, I mean… I first jumped when I was twenty-one and I’ve been meaning to reach out but… I just didn’t.” 

Martyn nods. “I didn’t talk to my dad about it until much later.” 

For some reason, Dan understands why he didn’t. 

“It’s isolating.” Dan says with a shrug, “Maybe that’s just how I feel.”

“It _is_ isolating.” 

Dan picks up his mug, his fingers tap against the side of it before taking his first small sip. 

“I go into like a weird headspace after it happens and it’s not like I can really talk about it in a way where it makes sense. Everyone jumps differently.” 

Martyn reads something out loud from his notebook, “_I seem to jump a few times a month, I started to log them to see if there were specific days of the week but it’s random. My father jumps once a month but every few months its twice or even three times._” 

Dan taps against his mug more. “I can’t imagine that. I only jump maybe a couple times a year? I’ll get one long day and then the rest are short jumps and it’s staticy—almost like I’m dreaming them. They’re not like the one I had yesterday. I’ll see myself but then I’m back again.” Dan says with a sigh. 

Martyn nods, _like he gets it._ “Yeah. I get that too. I used to think that maybe it was just an intense dream, but then something will happen that I’ll remember. It’s almost like you’re getting a snapshot of a moment.” 

Dan felt relief knowing that he wasn’t the only one, there have been many times when they’ve happened and he’ll wake up in a sweat in bed freaked out. 

“Have you ever gone back to a certain age?” Dan asks, it was one of the questions he had written down in his notebook.

Martyn nods, “Yeah, it’s rare but I do. I think the older you get the more you go back to certain ages. My dad told me that he went back to four years old…. When he got back all he could do was just. _Cry_. Which was a sight to see because I’ve never seen him cry.”

Dan nods, thinking, _I cry all the time._ Being alive was hard, being alive and fighting a mental illness while being a jumper was fucking difficult. There were support groups for this very reason but Dan couldn’t see himself going to one. Jumping was such a personal thing, it must be, if Martyn and his father could barely open up to Phil about it. 

Dan wants to tell him about how he struggled a lot of his childhood, but he could barely tell that to Phil. Dan wants to tell him how his mind can’t seem to process anything that’s happening to him. He wants to tell him how much he misses his younger self despite how much he doesn’t really like his current self. 

“Are you okay, mate?” Martyn asks.

Dan closes his eyes for a brief second. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just… it’s just weird.”

Martyn gives him an empathetic smile. “I know. I didn’t tell Cornelia for a long time that I was a jumper. It put a strain on our relationship. She thought I was just leaving like a bloody dick. I guess I was just scared of what she’d say. Turns out her best friend and her grandmother are jumpers.” 

“Did you not tell her because you were afraid that she’d leave or treat you differently?” Dan asks, taking another drink of his tea.

“Yeah… I also heard things about partners not understanding and sometimes there would be jealousy. I don’t know why I was worried. I knew she would understand.”

Dan thinks about Phil, who already knew what to do in that situation because he had already witnessed it. 

Dan sighs. “I want there to be a logical explanation but I know I won’t get one. It makes it infuriating. I know there’s books from people’s experiences but they’re not all that helpful.” 

“Everyone is different, and everyone feels differently.” Martyn agrees. 

Dan takes another deep breath, finishing his tea and getting up. 

“Anyway, thanks for talking with me. I’ll get out of your hair. I promised Phil I’d pick up takeout.” 

Martyn just smiles, grabbing Dan’s mug and takes it to the kitchen before following him to the door. 

“Whatever you’re feeling, it’s valid. I used to make myself angry with my feelings. Talk to Phil. I’m sure you do, but those worries will eat you up if you don’t try and talk about them.” 

Dan nods, taking that advice to heart.

He texts Phil that he’s on his way to get the food, and then after, he’ll be on his way back home to him. 

*

“You’re back.” Phil says with a smile, getting up from the couch to greet Dan.

“I’m back.” Dan says, putting the food on the table.

Phil has his arms open for Dan. 

Coming home to Phil, whether it be from a jump or from running errands, was the best feeling in the world. He got lucky with this one.


	3. Chapter 3

**AGE EIGHT.**

Dan clutches the pillow in his lap, he holds onto it like it’s the only thing keeping him grounded. It’s late, he got the last appointment for the day with his therapist. His leg is non stop shaking and he hasn’t been able to keep direct eye contact with his therapist for the past half hour. They’re almost done with this session, it’s just sometimes, it was too much. It was just all too much. He gets these flashes of memories sometimes. 

Some say it’s just a jumper thing, these intense memories of a single moment in your lifetime. Dan wonders if that’s true or if it’s just feelings that he hasn’t dealt with yet. 

“I’m always being pushed by bullies in some memories,” Dan says after a while, when he talks his voice is hoarse, like he’s been crying. 

It’s not entirely wrong—the last intense memory was just a couple minutes ago, he was just in his room, he was given a bath by his nana and his mum had tucked him into bed. He can hear his mum in the hallway explaining to his nana that he’s just sensitive. He woke up sensitive, and has been the entire day. But if Dan is remember correctly it was dinner that pushed him over the edge. 

His dad was yelling at him for leaving a mess on the table, and it wasn’t him, it was Adrian, he tried to tell him that but it didn’t matter. He’s older, if he sees a mess he should clean it up anyway. He remembers shooting his brother a look that he didn’t understand because he’s still small. 

Baby Dan didn’t want a bath but he had dried mud in his hair and in other places that his nana didn’t understand but would have, had she asked questions and just didn’t assume that he was just a ‘rowdy boy’. There was nothing rowdy in Dan’s body. 

While most of his classmates were made of anger that only an eight year old mad at the world could hold in their little bodies, Dan was made of gentleness and a hunger to be accepted that it just made him quiet. 

The memory stops, and Dan looks up at his therapist and she smiles at him. 

“Did it happen again?” 

“Yeah, it’s been happening more lately.” He rubs his temple and sighs. 

When he looks up again, she’s gone. 

*

He’s on his street near his house, and it’s dark. 

It’s weird for Dan to be in the past in his neighbourhood that he visits a couple times a year for birthdays and holidays. Somehow it looks different without ever changing. Maybe it’s just him, especially the last couple of years of jumping.

_Am I really about to break into my own house?_ is Dan’s first thought now that he’s walking up to the familiar house. All the lights are off and he knows that the gate is open to head to the back. It was something that his mum had been nagging his father to change but he never did. 

Dan had walked as quietly as he could to the gate, trying not to make a sound and flinching each time he stepped on a crunchy leaf. He lets out a sigh of relief once he’s made it to the other side and closes the gate again. He’s standing in the middle of his lawn and he looks up at the sky. 

It’s the same sky back in London, but an entirely different time, and he’s an entirely different person. He stands there for a moment, and he lets himself wonder what twelve year old Phil was doing this day, and he knows that he doesn’t exist in his life yet but he can’t help but feel an overwhelming emotion for him knowing that this was a year of a lot of realisations for Phil. 

He places his thumb over the moon, a trick that his nana taught him many years ago that he hadn’t forgotten. He bites his bottom lip, deciding what he should do. He takes a deep breath and heads towards the back door. 

He’s as quiet as he could be trying to slide it open, and when he gets inside, he can feel and hear his heart beating fast standing in such a familiar and unfamiliar house. He looks at what he can see, hands shaking to reach out at the photos that have since been taken down and changed. 

He walks towards the basement and sees flicker of light underneath. Dan smiles a little at the thought of baby Dan waiting for his parents to go to sleep. He used to try and time it, writing it down in a notebook that he kept underneath his bed and would bring out again if anything had changed. Dan takes a couple more steps before he slowly opens the door. 

Baby Dan is shocked, his eyes are wide open thinking that he just got caught until he realises that it’s just _him._ Dan sees a small smile break out on his face and he gets up from his comfortable safety blanket and power walks to Dan and wraps his arms around him. 

Dan closes his eyes, wrapping his arms around his tiny little body that held so many emotions for an eight year old to hold. 

“Hi Dan.” Dan says, looking at the state of his curly hair and how bloodshot his eyes look. 

It’s been a hard day for baby Dan, and instead of sleeping he’s staying up late. 

“I missed you.” Baby Dan says with a small yawn. 

Dan smiles. 

“I missed you too.” 

It was something that Dan was still trying to understand, he was still coming to peace with the fact that he was capable of missing someone from the past that was him. It was something much more deeper than that though—it didn’t sound as crazy as he thought when he broke it down. People often miss their past selves, they probably just don’t see themselves every once in a while like Dan and Martyn did. 

“Are you playing video games?” Dan sits down on the ground grabbing the controller. 

“Yes, but I’m stuck.” Baby Dan sits next to him and he yawns again, slumping against Dan.

He’s comfortable around him. It touches Dan’s heart remembering how hard it was for his younger self to trust anyone, always too afraid that it would end in some kind of violence that only someone a little bit bigger than him could manage. 

“I’ll help you.” Dan pressed play. 

While Dan plays, baby Dan talks about his day. He tells him his favourite classes, a couple of fun facts he learned. He talks about his friends, the ones that are really nice to him, he thinks about being that age again, and feeling confused about his feelings towards other boys, wanting to be close but being too afraid to touch because maybe _they’d know._ Maybe they’d know that Dan was a little different, maybe that was the reason why Dan wasn’t so likable. 

Something breaks inside of Dan and it’s taken years and years to try and repair it. 

Slowly, baby Dan starts to fall asleep. 

Dan lets him sleep against his shoulder for a little, the only light coming from the television. He closes his eyes too and he thinks back to when he came down here a couple months ago. Everything has changed, this house was still his house but time shifts things around. Maybe baby Dan made everything better, somehow, the house felt more warm and inviting, like he actually belonged here instead of the feeling he often got when he came back—like he had outgrown it. 

Dan feels a lump in his throat. He shakes away the memories and he gets up and baby Dan starts to fall and he catches him, holding him in his arms to take him to bed. He’s eight, and he’s growing up, and he’s already starting to get taller and taller but he’s still little enough to hold in his arms. 

He studies baby Dan’s face and wonders if this what his mum felt—to love someone so much you just felt like exploding. The feeling was both heartbreaking and overwhelming. Baby Dan wraps his arms around Dan’s neck and he feels him let out a breath of exhaustion. 

Dan carries baby Dan up the stairs and he tucks him into his bed, pulling the covers up right under his chin, moving the hair out of his eyes and his thumb grazes the tip of his nose, a little trick that his mum used to help Dan go to sleep, he wonders if it still worked anymore. 

Baby Dan opens his eyes for a moment before closing them again, shifting in bed, and he watches as baby Dan reaches for his stuffed bear and holds it against his chest. 

Dan can’t help but think that overtime the stuffed animals and the big pillows slowly started to shift to a person, and how hard it was for him to sleep alone now that he had someone. 

“You can sleep here if you want,” Baby Dan whispers, he grabs his second pillow and hands it to him, but he sounds halfway into his dreamland. 

Dan smiles, grabbing the pillow and laying it down on the floor. Baby Dan looks over at Dan and he can see his tired smile. 

“Thanks for playing with me,” Baby Dan yawns. 

Dan reaches up to squeeze his hand. 

It’s not too long until baby Dan falls asleep. Dan gets up from his spot and uses the flashlight that he kept in a drawer for when he liked to stay up late to read. He looks at the state of his room and he picks up things that he had forgotten about. 

There was a time when Dan had just grabbed everything that seemed childish and threw it into a box not caring what it was and then gave it away. Dan hates how he got rid of so many things because of what people thought about them. It seemed to be a theme for his life. 

He comes across a couple of notebooks, his handwriting is awful he can barely read it himself but he catches a few words about friends and then _‘James’_. It makes something flip in his stomach. 

He tucked the notebook away again, even if it was him, he respected his privacy. 

Dan grabs one of the stuffed animals that finished its baby Dan rotation, holding it to his chest, wishing that he could bring it with him to the present knowing that he got rid of it in a couple of years. He looks out the window, at the pale moonlight, and he listens for any kind of outside noise but there is none. His fingers tap against the floor, he sits there for a while before getting up, placing the stuffed animal on top of the pillow. 

Dan quietly walks back downstairs into the basement and turns the light on so he can turn the television off and make the room look like it hadn't been touched. He looks at everything that’s long gone, he sees his father everywhere here; things that he bought that never got used, if he listens closely he can even hear the faint arguments that his father had with his mother down here, it became a dumping pile of everything that his father didn’t need anymore. Dan tries hard not think about the fact he spent so much of his time down here. 

The thought gets stuck in his throat knowing that his father doesn’t exist in this space anymore. He shakes the thoughts away, turning the light off and going back upstairs to his room. 

Dan watches baby Dan sleep for a little longer. 

The last thing he remembers is him finally laying down on the pillow clutching the stuffed animal. 

*

Dan is outside his therapy building but it’s dark now, the streets are completely empty here and he’s cold. He gets his phone out and sees a text from Phil saying that he jumped during his session and by the time he gets home dinner should be made and that he’s sorry if he falls asleep before he gets back. 

He sighs. 

The weight of jumping gets to him more than he lets on, and he’s always afraid of talking to Phil about it because there are just some things that he may not understand, that he may not want to talk about, because he knows that it must be stressful always waiting for someone not knowing when they’re going to come back.

The way that Phil used to talk about it when they were younger was in annoyance, it ruined so many good family trips because his brother or dad would always be missing for a part of it. Dan feels the guilt settled in his bones and he digs his fingers into his palm trying hard not to think about all the future things that he might miss out on because of this. 

It’s funny how he’s walking away from the place that was meant to help these feelings, but he has an appointment next week. They’re becoming daily like that. 

He sets a reminder to take his medication that he missed a couple hours ago. 

Dan savours this time to himself, it’s nice to be at one with this city and exist without having to participate in it. Dan really underestimated the present. 

Going back to the past was exhausting. Sometimes his body didn’t know how to catch up. 

He puts his music on and tries to notice the way the pavement feels against his feet, and he kicks rocks when he can, and skips over big cracks and lines. Being alive felt so exhausting some days, but after an emotional jump it just felt exhilarating.

*

The lights were still on in the flat and Dan comes home to a plate sitting on the table with a glass of ribena in the exact way that he likes it. He pops his head into their room and Phil is laying down with his phone next to him and by the looks of it he was watching videos until Dan got back but he just missed him. 

Dan tucks Phil into bed, grabbing his phone and putting it on the charger before closing the door and walking quietly to the kitchen to heat his food up. 

Dan sends a quick text to Martyn.

_this is hard. _

_i feel torn never wanting to leave but knowing i can’t stay because i have someone who’s waiting for me who makes me meals not knowing when i’ll be back_

_does is it get easier?_

Dan savours each bite of the meal, his leg is bouncing. He doesn’t know why he’s anxious. 

When he finishes he washes all the dishes that Phil left that he always says he’ll do in the morning.

Dan gets ready for bed and crawls next to Phil, staring at his back. He lifts his shirt up and presses his hand against his skin, like he’s trying to memorise him like the first time. His fingers feel each bump and curve and it’s enough to make Phil stir and turn. 

“You’re back.” He says, his voice is lost and groggy, but it’s enough to make him feel warm, the anxious thoughts dissipating as Phil reaches out blindly for him. 

“I’m back.” Dan whispers, getting closer to him. 

“I missed you.”  
Dan smiles in the dark.

“I missed you too.”

Phil is losing consciousness again and Dan lets him. 

“Tell me all about it in the morning, okay?” Phil says, still holding on to Dan’s hand with no intentions of letting it go. 

“Okay, Phil.” Dan laughs.

He hears his phone buzz and he turns to look at the message. 

_I can’t tell you if it gets easier, I’m still figuring that part out myself._

_What I can tell you that the right people will wait for you. Phil is the right person for you Dan._

_Always here to chat_  
_Martyn_

Dan pulls Phil closer and lets himself drift off into his dreamland too.

**Author's Note:**

> if you liked this, please let me know. 
> 
> comments/kudos appreciated!
> 
> find me on tumblr/twitter: **@nihilismdan.**


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